


Just One Map You'll Need

by easternepiphany



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 12:56:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easternepiphany/pseuds/easternepiphany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything about her friendship with Jeff has been complicated from the start. Maybe that <i>means something</i> in the grand scheme of things, and maybe it doesn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just One Map You'll Need

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place during the bar scene in the finale, using the [deleted scenes](http://easternepiphany.tumblr.com/post/50065456858) as a jumping off point. The logistics of this are kinda shaky, I will admit, but just pretend, okay? :)

“Listen, I think we should call off the wedding.”

“Whoa, slow down. You buy me one drink and you’re already calling off our wedding?”

He shoots her a look and she relents, just a little bit. She knows he’s freaking out—he wouldn’t have asked her out for drinks if he wasn’t—but she’s not exactly sure _why_. This is what he’s wanted for so long; they used to talk about it sometimes, about him graduating and moving on, finally getting his life back on track. She remembers the longing in his voice when he mentioned practicing law again and all his lawyer suits pressed into the back of his closet, as if he can’t stand to look at them anymore.

So she doesn’t really understand this hesitation. Sure, he’s leaving the group, but wasn’t he the one who said it doesn’t matter because they’re actually friends? Study group isn’t the only thing holding them together anymore. The months they were expelled proved that.

“Do you remember,” she asks after she’s done reassuring him, “the first day we met? And you asked me to marry you?”

He smirks. “I did?”

“Yeah! I told you I got tear gassed at a World Trade Rally and you asked me to marry you. I can’t believe you don’t remember!”

“Well, to be fair, that was the least interesting of our proposals.”

She laughs. “That’s true. And we weren’t even close to getting married that time.”

He takes a long sip of scotch and nods before shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

“Calm down, Winger, I’m only joking. I woulda divorced your ass every time.”

He rolls his eyes and leans back against the seat. “Hey, thanks again for meeting me. I just needed someone to vent to and you’re... appropriately good at that.”

She preens a little. “Well, I would hope so,” she says, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “But I’m glad you called. It’s been a while since we’ve done this.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you were too busy being Troy’s girlfriend.”

He looks down at his glass and swirls the scotch around. She watches with a frown as it come up against the sides of the glass and she crosses and uncrosses her legs. “What about before that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we didn’t hang out last year. We didn’t go out for drinks or pizza or even talk, really. Come on, it had nothing to do with Troy and you know it.”

Jeff shrugs and Britta pokes at an olive. She thought maybe, after all this time and all they’d been through, he’d learned to be honest not only with himself, but with her, too. The thing is, she knows him better now than she did when she fucked him every night and still he’s trying to hide from her.

“Okay, fine,” she says, “I’ll guess. We ended things and it freaked you out and you didn’t know how to deal with being my friend after being my... whatever. And instead of sitting down and talking to me like an adult, you ignored me and were rude to me because you’re Jeff Winger and that’s how you do things.”

His jaw tightens but he doesn’t answer, eyes still on his drink.

“And,” she continues, “something happened at the beginning of this year, and I’m not sure what it was, but suddenly you wanted to be my best friend again. And that’s fine. But you don’t get to play hot and cold with me anymore. You’re here or you’re not. I’ll understand whichever way you choose to go but I don’t deserve to be treated like that. Not by you.”

She’s a little surprised by her words but once she says them she knows they’re true. Everything about her friendship with Jeff has been complicated from the start. Maybe that _means something_ in the grand scheme of things, and maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s just that they’re too similar, too broken, too _whatever_ to have a normal friendship where they hang out on Fridays and go see a movie.

“What do you want to be?” she had asked him once, all those years ago. His answer wasn’t really an answer, and since then he’s been so many things to her: the thorn in her side, her partner in crime, her best friend, her fuck buddy, her pretty-much-boyfriend, the guy she’d call at three in the morning because her cat wouldn’t stop throwing up, her ex-friend at times, the guy she’d skip Thanksgiving dinner with her boyfriend and friends for, the person she knows better than anyone. And now, now their relationship is... _weird_ on a lot of levels because it’s so undefined and there’s a part of her that thinks maybe this is it, maybe it’s going to end up being the two of them forever because it always comes back to Jeff somehow, to them sitting in a bar and drinking with an elephant in the room they’re never going to address.

“You have to remember,” he says finally, “I’ve never been in that sort of situation before. I don’t sleep with women and then have to be their friend after, or sit in a room with them every single day. And I’ve never, ever, ever slept with a woman for as long as I slept with you. Dated. Whatever.”

“Dated?”

He gestures with his free hand. “So maybe us spending all our free time together and the guy at the Chinese place knowing us by name and order and fighting over which late night show to watch was dating. Don’t make a big thing about it.” He says this with a smirk and she raises an eyebrow.

“You’re the one who’s constantly making a big thing about it.”

He shrugs again. “It was... easier to be an asshole to you than to admit that I didn’t know how to act around you. And that was wrong and I’m sorry.”

Britta is taken aback a bit; Jeff’s barely ever apologized for bumping into her, let alone actually hurting her feelings. And she sure as hell never expected him to admit the real reason for his behavior.

“Me and Troy weirded you out,” she says before she can stop herself.

“It was,” he says carefully, “another situation I didn’t know how to handle.”

She holds his gaze for a minute; people are mulling around them, talking and laughing and some are drunker than others. She remembers coming here with him almost weekly for that long stretch of months, drinking too much and being too sloppy and making out in the cab on the way home. It was as if they got drunk enough it didn’t matter what they did because it didn’t count. She marvels sometimes at how stupid they were, how stupid they continue to be.

Finally, he looks away. “You weren’t supposed to be with someone like Troy,” he says quietly.

“Who are you to decide that?”

“I’m not. I’m just saying.”

She finishes her drink in one go, lets it settle in her chest. Vodka burns on the way down, even after all this time, and Britta relishes in it. It’s warm and it makes her feel, whether she wants to or not.

“You want another? I’ll buy,” Jeff offers.

“Who was I supposed to be with?” she asks instead of answering.

He exhales slowly.

“Was I supposed to wait around for you? Did you even want to be with me?”

“You know why I called you? Because I don’t want to graduate anymore. I don’t want to be a lawyer and turn back into that guy I used to be. Because I like who I am now. Greendale and the group changed me. _You_ changed me, for better or worse.”

It’s a cross between a wedding vow to the school he’ll be marrying tomorrow and a plea from the scared little boy she saw on Thanksgiving. But it’s also kind of a _duh doy_ moment for Britta because she should have seen this one coming. “You don’t have to take that job,” she says. “And here’s the difference: now you have six of us to stop you from becoming that guy again. Because none of us wants to be friends with him, trust me.”

He looks up and laughs hesitantly. “You wouldn’t even have dinner with that guy.”

“No way,” she says, her nose wrinkling up. “He was a douche.”

“I think ‘narcissistic to the point of near-delusion’ was how you put it.”

“Do you ever think,” she starts, running her fingertip along the rim of her glass, “that if we would have just done it right from the start it would have worked out?”

She wonders if this question is going to be added to the pile of ones without answers but he looks at her hands intently, as if he’s thinking of how to best frame his reply. “I think you and I are in the habit of doing everything backwards.”

“That’s one way of saying it,” she says. She’s not sure if she’s relieved or disappointed in his non-straight answer. “But you did this right. You got the degree without cheating and you’re going to be fine. And I’m proud of you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They smile and she notices the time on his watch. “I should probably go. And you should, too, it’s a big day tomorrow.” She puts her glass on the table and stands up.

“Wait.” He stands, too, and reaches out as if to grab her arm. “Could you... do you want to come over?”

Britta hesitates. This has happened before and it’ll happen again. He didn’t need to answer any of her questions for her to know that the answers don’t matter. What matters is that she nods and gets in her car to follow him home. What matters is that he pours them each another drink. What matters is he makes the first move, leans in to touch her cheek and she crosses the distance between them.

And it’s all so _familiar_ : his hands and his mouth and his skin and even his bed and his sheets. He dips down to kiss her stomach and she knows his motions. It’s like they never stopped, really, because he fits against her in all the ways he used to.

Later, in the dark, she’s almost asleep when he nudges her arm with his. “Britta.”

“Hmm?”

“I want to be your best friend again.”

She can’t see his face clearly but she can see the outline of it: his eyes, open; his mouth, straight, waiting. She smiles and leans her head on his shoulder and nods. “Okay.”

She leaves before dawn, like she did in the very beginning. On her way out the door she finds a notepad on the kitchen counter and leaves him a note: _Happy Graduation. I’ll miss you most._


End file.
